WhirlWind Runed, Player Limit, Book of Cain Signing and Art

Barbarian - Whirlwind Runed
With this video, we would like to show you the runed versions of the Barbarian's Whirlwind. Disclaimer: please keep in mind some effects or graphics may be missing or not be working correctly!

Bashiok on the player limit
Bashiok put out a few tweets today about player limits.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Hey, regarding your post on Dec-12 about graphics, will the player cap will be increased since it was limited by graphics before?
I'm not sure what you're referring to, but in any case no, the cap for players in a game is and will remain 4.

But that doesnt explain the 3vs3 in arena when thats 6 players. I dont see the logic.
Arena maps are a specific size and design, and there are not hundreds of enemies, just players.

reffering to JW saying a while ago that limit was capped bc too much graphics going on & you recently said they arent intensive.
Ah ok, I see. Yeah FPS/performance is not the same as readability. We have a 4 player limit for readability.

Book of Cain signing video
As you might be aware a signing for the Book of Cain was held last week and the likes of Chris Metzen, Micky Nielson and Flint Dille attended. The guys at The Worldstone Keep managed to take a video of the event. You can see the writers of the book talk about it and some future plans for similar project for their other franchises, as well as making a short but interesting Q&A Session.

Book of Cain Art
Artist Adrian Smith published two drawings he made for the Book of Cain - the first is a portrait of Lilith and the second depicts an uknown giant demon.

That's where I saw that chameleon. And I just watched that movie the other day.

On topic, if there is such a thing, I wouldn't mind Blizz to raid the player cap to five to allow all classes to play together. With the way that the Book of Cain sets up the past two games, it was always a band of warriors(Classes) defeating demons. Not a lone warrior killing Diablo. Or a lone barbarian or necromancer killing Baal. So I figured raise the player cap to five just to give that story a bit more backbone for the new game.

I don't care much about the player limit or on any of their game design decisions. The game shalt be judged upon its release. If something works or doesn't work, it shalt be fixed with a patch or on the expansion.

honestly the player cap of D2 was definitely one of the many things needed to be corrected in D3 which it has. even if you had zero lag in a game with 8 freaking people it just wasnt fun at all, most of the group would just sit back and let a few kill and even if you tried to get a kill you rarely did because of so many people fighting, 4 players is much much better and just makes sense. it allows for more companionship rather then rush games forming. the less people the more personal it becomes

On topic, if there is such a thing, I wouldn't mind Blizz to raid the player cap to five to allow all classes to play together. With the way that the Book of Cain sets up the past two games, it was always a band of warriors(Classes) defeating demons. Not a lone warrior killing Diablo. Or a lone barbarian or necromancer killing Baal. So I figured raise the player cap to five just to give that story a bit more backbone for the new game.

The demon hunter is a lone wolf.
I get what you're saying, though. As Wished said, 8 players was ridiculous and never fun. 4-5 players would be sweet spots, but 4 works for me.

honestly the player cap of D2 was definitely one of the many things needed to be corrected in D3 which it has. even if you had zero lag in a game with 8 freaking people it just wasnt fun at all, most of the group would just sit back and let a few kill and even if you tried to get a kill you rarely did because of so many people fighting, 4 players is much much better and just makes sense. it allows for more companionship rather then rush games forming. the less people the more personal it becomes

That's because you played on bnet with random people, and not with friends. Trust me when I say this: when you actually knew the other 7 people, 8 players WAS NOT too much. LAN for life!

honestly the player cap of D2 was definitely one of the many things needed to be corrected in D3 which it has. even if you had zero lag in a game with 8 freaking people it just wasnt fun at all, most of the group would just sit back and let a few kill and even if you tried to get a kill you rarely did because of so many people fighting, 4 players is much much better and just makes sense. it allows for more companionship rather then rush games forming. the less people the more personal it becomes

That's because you played on bnet with random people, and not with friends. Trust me when I say this: when you actually knew the other 7 people, 8 players WAS NOT too much. LAN for life!

it wasnt just because they were random. just like i said, too many people cuased too much clutter and chaos and just wasnt nearly as fun

I like the player cap there it is, and here is why. With 4 level 30+ characters running around sending demons flying all over the place. you would louse sight of where you and your friends are. there would be so much happening on the screen with lets say 6 or maybe even 5 . As well with 4 is it gives you that choice of what one do we want. if there was a space for each class then there would be easy to combat EVERY problem that got in your way. 4 people adds a choice and challenge.

Now as for using Boy Gorge to call Doomscream the man... that had to hurt a bit lol.

....... I WOULD LOVE THAT. 4x ppl spamming that everywhere just sounds so epic xD
But still, i understand what ppl say. And i have to agree, we don't need more than 4 ppl =). Then it does require skill and customization of every char. Not just a bunch of players doing random things random ways each for themselves.
And besides, i'm a lone wolf =P which is excactly why i'm going DH and WD =)

on top of that, I had to spam it to get that effect, if it really was 6 people, everyone would cast it once, and due ti it lasting they would be casting even MORE spells, then you have the 100+mobs on the screen, d3 is a lot more visually complex than d2. Once people see some of these later spells and think in those terms thell start to see why blizz made the move

Just as several people said above me, they should have just said the new player limit was decided on because of the fun factor. A good number of players didn't like having eight player games for a handful of reasons. It would have made perfect sense for them to state that was the main reason.

On the other hand, them telling us that the main reason for having a four player cap is readability is almost a bad thing. It could mean that one of the real reasons is that the artists couldn't create spell effects that were interesting and less visually noisy. It could mean other issues as well.

I'm bringing this up, simply because more than 10 years ago, Blizzard was able to make a game where you could have 8 players in a 640x480 game (later 800x600 with the expansion's release) and the player could actually have some sort of an idea of what's going on. I always thought that was beyond impressive, considering that some players could load Diablo 2 up this very day and have a fun time playing it 10 years later. Even to this day, people have nostalgic memories of some of those spells and spell effects. I know Blizzard could have pulled it off and I have faith in them, but did they just take the easy way out? With a four player limit, they better be able to produce some really compelling effects that look clean and presentable. If they don't, it will be a huge let-down.

For a modern day dev team to shy away from clearing those design hurdles is unsettling to me. With computers being able to handle much higher resolutions than 640x480, it just feels like a cop out. I wouldn't see a problem with bringing the camera back and increasing the size of the player's PoV with a four player limit either. This isn't starcraft where the size of PoV can negatively impact gameplay or micro/macro. It would be a interesting option if you ask me.

that wouldnt change anything, it does not matter how much field of view you have, if theres so much going on its covering your character (your character will always be in the center). They wanted to make the skills impressive and very awesome looking, while keeping them "simple" enough to work with 4 plays. they hit it on the spot. THEY COULD have made the spells so we could have 8 again... but.. we would be back with d2 spells /yawn

I think once we get to late game.. people will start seeing this in action.